Monday, May 26, 2008

Temescal Canyon Loop -- Skull Rock





Today I hiked the Temescal Canyon Loop Trail in Topanga Wilderness.  I parked at the intersection of Sunset Blvd and Temescal Canyon, it is otherwise 5 dollars to park inside the parking lot.  Anyway, this hike is very popular and fairlycrowded.  I had a heavy pack on in preparation for Mt. Shasta, so I got a pretty good work out in.  The loop itself is only 2.8 miles but I veered off a little and went a little past Skull Rock to gain some elevation and distance.  It was also less crowded up there.  The TCL has beautiful views of downtown LA and the Santa Monica coastline.  There was a small bridge that went over a creek but it hardly had any water flowing in it.  Trail signs claim it's a waterfall but nothing was falling when I was there except a few drops of water.  I ate lunch about 1/4 mile north of skull rock, from there I could see the Temescal Canyon trail extending further into the mountains.  When I have more time I will have to do some exploring. 

I brought my GPS unit and tracked the hike.  I also learn of this cool open source software that will sync up my GPS track and photos together so that on the Google map path the photos inserted are actually where I was standing when I took the photograph.... pretty killer stuff!

Trip info:
  • Elevation start 350 ft
  • Elevation at the top 1400 ft
  • Total elevation gain 1050 ft
  • Total Miles 4.5
  • Time 2 hrs
  • Great views of downtown and coastline, but very busy and crowded.


View Larger Map

3 comments:

Anil Sharma said...

Good stuff. Thanks for posting it. what software did you use to map gps location and photos location?

Unknown said...

I was able to download your path into my gps and run the same trail. Technology is so cool.....sometimes ;-)

Todd said...

Yeah, GPS technology is pretty sweet and getting easier each year. "Easy GPS" is a good/free piece of software. To map it, now i just import my GPS data directly to Google Earth. There is also a ton of shareware that enables you to place your photos at the location it was taken from. All you have to do is match up your camera clock and gps clock. Good times!